The Coniston Case (6 page)

‘I’m afraid you do, rather, although I still feel I’ve wasted the day if I haven’t stopped to look around me for at least a couple of minutes – but it does happen, more all the time. My father’s very good at reminding me. He’s been here for ages, and still thinks it’s magical.’

‘I never met your parents.’

‘They didn’t come down to Worcester much. When they’re not working, they go off to a Greek island or a city break somewhere, like Berlin. They’ve always done that.’

‘Listen, Sim – I suppose I’ll have to tell you. I’m up here for a reason. It’s going to sound ridiculous, so brace yourself.’

‘Is it a man?’ Kathy’s husband, Simon, might well have proved too boring for sustained fidelity, once into their third decade together. He was a college lecturer in modern languages.

‘A man? As in a
lover
? No, you idiot. Valentine’s Day
must have addled your brains, if that’s what you think.’

‘I expect it has,’ Simmy agreed. ‘So what, then?’

‘It’s basically to do with Joanna. She’s fallen in with some people—’

‘A cult! You’ve come to rescue her from some bunch of lunatics who think the world will end next week!’

‘
No!
Simmy, listen, will you. For God’s sake!’ The impatient, almost hectoring, tone reminded Simmy that Kathy could be bossy and impatient even with close friends. There had been times when this had made her wonder why she maintained the relationship. Perhaps, too, it explained why she had made inadequate efforts to maintain communication after she moved.

But she forgave Kathy completely on this occasion, saying, ‘Gosh, I’m turning into Ben Harkness, aren’t I. He makes stupid suggestions like that, all the time. Although quite often they turn out not to be stupid after all.’

‘The idea isn’t entirely stupid. I guess you might call it a sort of cult, but they’re perfectly harmless. Their motives are actually very pure. Young and idealistic and all that.’

Simmy kept quiet with difficulty.

‘The thing is, they’re all studying physics at university, and there’s a major module about climate. Meteorology and all that. And they’ve decided to do some experiments of their own, in a region that hasn’t had much industry for ages. It’s something about carbon dioxide, apparently, and some theory about water vapour. There’s a tutor with them, who happens to be the one Jo fell for in her first term. She’s badly smitten, and now they’re up here with nobody watching them, I dread to think what could happen. She’s had one or two health problems lately, on top of everything else.’

‘I can see why you’d be worried,’ Simmy sympathised. ‘She’s still pretty young.’

‘Right. I really hate to come over as a mother hen, but I do have a bad feeling about it all. Plus, I think it’s time I met this tutor. For all we know, he’s married or something. I don’t want him to break her heart.’

Hearts. Flowers. The symbols of romantic springtime matings seemed to be everywhere, Simmy thought. ‘No,’ she said weakly.

Kathy went on, spilling out all her worries, and the scrappy pieces of information she’d managed to glean. ‘They’ve been here a week already – on the slopes of the Old Man of Coniston, setting up a whole lot of measuring equipment and so forth. But on Tuesday I had a call from Jo saying there’s been some trouble. Simon says it won’t be anything dangerous, but I’m not so sure. Obviously, I can’t go marching in without warning, like a parent whose kid’s being bullied at primary school. I’ve got to approach it carefully. But now there’s all this bother with you and the police, which seems to be centred on Coniston as well. I can’t believe there’s any connection, but even so …’

‘I see,’ said Simmy, not sure that she did. ‘It seems funny, though, the way you’ve just been drifting around Bowness this afternoon, instead of rushing off to find Joanna. Haven’t you heard from her since Tuesday?’

‘No – and I wouldn’t expect to. She’s quite convinced she knows what she’s doing.’

‘And yet …?’

‘If you must know, I was checking something out in Bowness first. One of the group is the daughter of a colleague of mine and she told me Mandy has an aunt living up here,
and I found her address on the computer. I thought I’d call in for a chat, just to see if she knew anything.’

‘And?’

‘She wasn’t in.’

‘So what was the trouble Jo told you about?’

‘The equipment was thrown about and some of it broken. They had to start all over again.’

‘Is it out on the open fell? What if it snows? How are they going to keep guard over it?’

‘Two of the boys have got all-weather camping gear. They were going to stand guard, around the clock.’

‘It does sound a bit dramatic.’

‘I wondered whether it might just have been some sheep trampling on the stuff. But Jo laughed at that idea.’

‘Did they get permission from the landowner first?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘It’ll be National Park up there. I’m not sure how ownership works, come to think of it. But people aren’t likely to take kindly to a bunch of students playing at science in their precious landscape. They’ll think it’s a survey for a wind farm or a nuclear power station or something. Stuff like that is incredibly sensitive.’

‘It all connects up, though. If they get readings about CO
₂
that show – oh, I don’t know – that the theories about greenhouse gases are all wrong, for example, then there’ll be people wanting to stop them.’

‘Surely a few students doing measurements for a week isn’t going to prove anything? Even I know it’s more complicated than that.’

‘I’m not really up to speed with it, either. There is some mystery to it, if Joanna’s anyone to go by. I got the feeling
there’d been measurements made in the same place on and off for a long time. Centuries, even.’

‘How could you “get the feeling” about something like that? Either she told you or she didn’t.’

‘Her exact words were, “We’re not the first people to do this, you know. We’re following in the footsteps of some very serious scientists. And their findings got them into some pretty bad trouble.” Does that sound ominous to you?’

‘When did she say that?’

‘Tuesday. She was very excited about it.’

Simmy’s instincts were powerfully against any sort of melodrama. If bad things were going to happen, she wanted to be a long way away at the time. But she had learnt that events could overtake you, however hard you tried to avoid them. And now if she was on Google, associated with murder and mystery, then events were going to follow her about all the more.

‘Hmm,’ was all she could think of to say to Kathy.

‘The whole thing about climate change has got hopelessly out of control, you see. Projects and developments that looked absolutely sensible and benign have got corrupted by vested interests, until it’s all a terrible mess. Jo met a scientist recently who doesn’t dare publish his findings because they raise a few awkward questions. It’s like a religious war, she says, with people scared of ending up on the wrong side.’

‘Gosh! I had no idea.’ Simmy remembered Ben’s surprise announcement of the day before. ‘But I know a boy who has. He should meet your Joanna. I bet they’d find each other very interesting.’

It was a refreshing interlude in many ways. Driving a
newcomer around the lake, she discovered how much local knowledge she had gleaned over the year. She pointed out various landmarks, reciting names her father had taught her on their sporadic days out. ‘That’s Finsthwaite over there,’ she nodded to the right, across the lake. ‘Isn’t that a wonderful name! It’s surrounded by lovely green woods in summer. People go there to see the bobbin mill, which is a museum. And it’s got a very weird church.’

‘You can’t see much from the road,’ Kathy complained. ‘We ought to be rowing up and down in a boat.’

‘Or walking. I don’t much like boats.’

‘I love them. How can you live here and not like boats?’

‘Easily enough, especially at this time of year. It’d be freezing cold on the water.’

They reached Newby Bridge, and negotiated the confusing roads that took them northwards all the way to the Sawreys. ‘We’re going back to where we started – just on the other side of the lake,’ Simmy explained inadequately. ‘And if you insist, we might get the ferry across to Bowness afterwards. I hardly ever do that.’

‘Because it’s a boat?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Has it ever sunk?’

‘Oh, yes. An entire wedding party came to grief, sometime in the nineteenth century. It’s operated by a cable now. Even that broke at one time and the boat drifted off for miles until it hit one of the little islands. For a while it was haunted by a horrible demon, so nobody would use it after dark. It does save a lot of driving, I have to admit.’

‘We’ll take it, then. It sounds totally enchanting. What time’s the last one?’

‘I’m not sure. Something like eight o’clock, I think.’

‘That’ll be nice and spooky – pitch-dark and freezing cold. I bet there are ghosts.’

‘There are,’ Simmy confirmed glumly. ‘Old ones and new.’ She was thinking of the poor young man drowned at Storrs not so long ago.

It was almost five o’clock when they reached Near Sawrey, and night was falling. The pub, which also offered accommodation, was open, but it would be a while before any food was available. ‘Let’s walk round the village for a bit,’ urged Kathy. ‘It looks gorgeous, from what I can see in this light.’

But the plan had to be aborted. Simmy’s phone rang, jingling in her bag as if possessed by a special urgency. ‘It must be Melanie,’ she said. ‘Got another last-minute order for red roses, I expect.’

But it was DI Moxon. ‘I’m really sorry about this,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid I need you in Coniston as soon as possible.’

‘
Where?
Why?’

‘There’s a sergeant who’ll meet you in the Yewdale Hotel, in the middle of the village. You can’t miss it.’

‘But
why
? I’ve got someone with me.’

‘You’re going to hate this, and I’m very sorry. But I need you to look at a body for me. It’s extremely important, otherwise I’d never ask you.’ He sounded flattened, speaking in a soft tone full of pain. Not at all like a police inspector.

‘A body?’ she repeated, almost hysterically. ‘Whose body?’ The question was superfluous, or so she hoped. Obviously the body could only be that of Mr Jack Hayter,
who died by his own hand on the slopes of the Old Man of Coniston. But Moxon’s reply gave her reason to doubt her assumption, and shudder with apprehension.

‘I’ll tell you that when you get here,’ he said. ‘Where are you now?’

‘Near Sawrey,’ she admitted. ‘Probably about fifteen minutes away.’

‘Well, that’s lucky, isn’t it? Who is it with you?’ Simmy bristled, doubly irritated by both his remarks, her anxiety turning to anger. ‘Nobody you know,’ she retorted rudely.

‘Sorry.’

His apology disarmed her and again the comparison with Wilf Harkness occurred to her. Moxon should have been outraged at her lack of cooperation, her failure to show due deference to an officer of the law. Instead he spoke like a jealous lover and she felt sure he had heard himself and cringed when she spoke sharply.

‘Yewdale Hotel,’ she said with a sigh. ‘All right, then.’

From Near Sawrey to Coniston took them along a zigzag route through Hawkshead and along the same road Simmy had used rather a lot recently. Kathy sat quiet and pale beside her, fully aware of Simmy’s fragile mood. The absence of questions and guesses reminded Simmy of how well she and Kathy had always got along. They had been known to spend a contented hour together over a picnic lunch or simply sitting in a park watching ducks, barely speaking. Kathy had been a haven from the irritations of married life, and she assumed it had worked the same both ways. With Tony there had always been a subtle sense of having to justify herself at every turn. He would want to know why she kept all the mugs upside down on their shelf; why she favoured one particular teaspoon over the others; why the cushions had to be plumped up before going to bed. The answers were always utterly obvious to her; the questions therefore intended merely to remind her that he
existed and might have other ways of doing things. Tony’s sense of his own existence was oddly shaky, she’d learnt, and when their baby died it made this aspect of him very much worse.

‘Yewdale Hotel,’ Kathy read from the illuminated sign above the main entrance. ‘Looks nice.’

‘I’ve never been inside. Do you suppose they’ve got a dead body somewhere in there? He’s been dead since Tuesday night, I think – why would he still be here? Why bring him to a hotel at all?’

‘Don’t ask me.’

They parked in the street and went into the hotel. A uniformed policeman jumped up, hands extended, as if fielding two difficult catches at once. ‘Mrs Brown?’ he said.

‘That’s me.’ Her attempt at a sort of brisk levity was not very successful.

‘Please follow me. It’s a two-minute walk.’

He marched out of the hotel entrance and turned left. Then he turned left again and they were almost out of the village, heading towards the lake down a road that Simmy immediately recognised. Darkness was gathering, the sky blotched with pewter-grey clouds. Simmy and Kathy trotted after him like lambs. ‘I know where we’re going,’ said Simmy. ‘This is where I brought the flowers on Monday. But why, when Mr Hayter died out on the fells?’ She did not expect a reply, but her questions continued to spill out, as her confusion deepened. ‘Have they brought him back to his house? Would they do that? What would the neighbours think?’

Kathy snorted, but had no helpful suggestions to contribute. The policeman behaved as if nothing had been said.

When they reached the house, they were taken through a narrow gate into a paved area at the rear where someone had converted part of the garden into a patio surrounded by a stone wall. A white tent took up three-quarters of the paved area. A car door slammed close by and DI Moxon materialised. ‘I really am sorry,’ he said, looking as if he meant it. ‘I couldn’t find any way around it. Jim – take this lady away, will you, and put her in the back of my car.’ Kathy was deftly removed and Simmy just stared at the tent.

‘It’s not as bad as you think it’ll be,’ Moxon said.

‘Why is he
here
? It seems so callous, leaving him lying outside like that. Didn’t you find him yesterday on the fells?’ Already the time frame was eluding her, the week disintegrating into spurts of activity and a blizzard of contradictory information. ‘Or even the day before,’ she added with a frown.

‘This isn’t the man we told you about who we found on the fells. He’s been in the mortuary since yesterday. This is another one. We don’t know how long he’s been here, because I’m sorry to say we didn’t look outside when I was here with Daisy yesterday morning.’

She stared at him in horror. ‘So he could have been here ever since I saw him on Monday. What on earth can have happened?’ She shook her head to clear it. ‘Did they die together? A suicide pact?’
Be quiet!
an inner voice ordered her, but she found herself unable to stop. ‘And what on earth can I do to help?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, in the same miserable voice he’d used on the phone. ‘We know who he is – a mate of mine, as it happens. I’m godfather to his son. What we
need from you is just to tell us officially that this was the man you delivered flowers to on Monday. I’m hoping you saw him clearly enough to know him again?’

‘It’s awfully dark,’ she complained.

‘Dave,’ said Moxon, and a brilliant floodlight went on, turning the little garden into a vivid stage with every detail in stark illumination. A flap of the tent was pulled back so the interior was equally well lit.

Other than her own stillborn daughter, Simmy had managed not to look directly at a dead face before. Even in Bowness last year, she had turned aside and looked at something else after the first ghastly second. It was, as Moxon had predicted, much less awful than she’d feared and she let her eyes rest on the motionless flesh for a long minute. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s the same man. I remember his hair, and the way his eyes are set under his brows. Funny, isn’t it – I had no reason to memorise him and yet I can remember the whole thing. He was tall and stooped a bit in the doorway. His head was bent and he looked at me from under those brows. His hair wasn’t brushed very well, so there was a tuft over one ear. It’s still there, see.’

‘So this man was inside the house and opened the door when you knocked. Did you ask him his name?’

‘Yes. I always do. I said, “Mr Hayter?” and he nodded. Then I said “Flowers for you” and he smiled in a funny way and took them from me.’

‘What sort of a funny way?’

‘As if it was a kind of joke. An ironic joke. I thought he might say “A bit late for that” or “Flowers won’t change anything”. That sort of idea. But he gave them a good look. He stood there holding them, the way people hold babies.
But I told you all this before. He seemed preoccupied, as if I’d interrupted something.’

‘Some details have changed in your account,’ he observed without a hint of accusation. ‘That’s not unusual, and probably not too big an issue.’

‘I’m remembering it better now I’m here,’ she explained, feeling foolishly guilty.

‘It’s okay. Now tell me again – did he read the card?’

‘Not while I was there. It was wishing him luck in his new job. I thought he looked a bit old to be starting afresh. But people do, don’t they?’ She returned her gaze to the dead face. ‘Poor man.’

‘So as far as you’re concerned, this is Mr Jack Hayter. But it isn’t, because Jack Hayter is lying in the mortuary in Barrow. His daughter identified him without hesitation. Besides, as I say, I know full well who this is. His name’s Tim Braithwaite.’

Simmy almost put a hand on his shoulder in commiseration. The police officer had mutated into a sad middle-aged man grieving for his friend. ‘Did he live here, then?’ she asked.

‘Oh yes. As did Jack Hayter. They lived here together.’

‘A couple? So it
was
a suicide pact? Is that what you’re saying?’ She frowned. ‘But if so, why does it matter which one I gave the flowers to?’

‘Timing,’ he muttered. Then he faced her full on. ‘And this one wasn’t suicide. What we have here is an unlawful killing by person or persons unknown. Murder, to use the normal term for it.’

Simmy thought of Ben and how thrilled he would be by the mystery. For a moment she envied him his youthful
lack of empathy. ‘So – Mr Hayter’s partner told me a lie when he said he was Mr Hayter. I suppose he just did it for convenience, to get rid of me. I mean – if it was the right house, that’s all that matters for a delivery, anyway. It doesn’t have to mean anything menacing, does it?’

‘They weren’t partners. Jack was Tim’s tenant. They had separate parts of the house. It’s big enough, after all.’ Simmy followed his gaze and agreed that the house obviously had at least four bedrooms, judging by the row of upstairs windows.

‘It must be horrible seeing him like this – lying out in the cold. Can’t you take him away now? Couldn’t you have asked me to see him in a mortuary somewhere?’

‘I could, but Melanie told me you were over this way with your friend, so I thought it would save you time and trouble this way.’

He wanted to see me again
, Simmy realised. He was using this whole thing as an excuse to be with her. Was that possible? She felt exhausted by the thought, and mildly anxious. He was being inexcusably unprofessional, and yet at least two colleagues were standing within earshot, apparently unsurprised by what they heard. But deeper down, she felt sorry for him as well.

‘What happened to him exactly?’ she asked. ‘Was it quick, do you think?’

‘Looks like a knife between the ribs. He’s been lying here for quite some time, so it’s not easy to be sure precisely what happened or where he died. Not until …’ He winced and Simmy understood that the thought of a post mortem on somebody you’d known a long time was horrible.

‘He wasn’t a policeman, was he?’

Moxon laughed without mirth. ‘Far from it. Way too clever for that, was Tim. He’s a scientist.
Was
a scientist. Some government department employed him to draw graphs and make predictions. I never really understood it. We didn’t discuss it much.’

‘What
did
you discuss?’

Simultaneously they noticed that the wrong person was asking the questions and both grimaced. ‘Usual stuff,’ he muttered. ‘The news of the day. Rugby. Weather. His son and his problems. The son’s problems, I mean. Cars. Money.’ He stopped himself with a little shake of his head. ‘All the usual stuff.’

‘Should you be handling the investigation, then? If he was your friend? Won’t it cloud your judgement or something?’

‘Maybe.’ He didn’t appear to care very much. ‘All I can think of for now is how nobody noticed he was lying here for God knows how long.’

‘Might have been three days or more,’ she calculated. ‘In winter, with half these houses closed up, I suppose that’s understandable. You can’t see the patio from the road.’ She should be eager to get back to Kathy and the security of her car. Instead she felt glued to the spot by DI Moxon’s need of her. ‘Who found him?’

‘I did,’ he said, the words echoing as if a great bell had just tolled. ‘I came to ask him about Jack Hayter, just as a routine, really. Even with a suicide, we like to get the whole picture straight.’

‘Oh dear,’ she said. Then she straightened up and added, ‘Can I go now?’

‘Of course.’ He seemed disappointed in her.

‘My friend will be wondering what’s going on. And it’s cold out here.’

He took a deep breath. ‘She’ll be fine. But it
is
cold, I admit. Turning icy tonight, shouldn’t wonder.’

‘All the more reason to get on, then. You won’t leave him here all night, will you?’

‘Don’t worry. We’ve done all we can here. They’ll be removing him any time now.’

Removing
sounded callous, as if the dead man were a piece of furniture. As if there was no hurry to get him indoors and taken care of. If she hadn’t known how distressed the inspector was, she would have mentally accused him of heartlessness. In another situation, with a total stranger dead at his feet, it might well have been different. He might have found it quite unremarkable, the way a human being could so quickly become a thing to be tidied away by men in a van.

Kathy got out of the police car bringing a cloud of warm air with her. The engine had been kept running to maintain the heat, with obvious efficiency. The two women walked back to Simmy’s chilly vehicle, not speaking until they were inside it.

‘Was it horrible?’ Kathy asked.

‘Not really. It’s pretty silly being scared of a dead body when you think about it.’

‘I didn’t mean scary. If he was murdered, that means he died in pain and might have been terrified. There could have been blood or worse. I was imagining all sorts of things while I waited for you.’

‘I didn’t see any blood. They only showed me his face. It was definitely the man I saw on Monday. He said he was
Mr Hayter, but the police say he’s not. He and Mr Hayter both lived in that house and now they’re both dead.’

‘You’re in shock,’ Kathy diagnosed. ‘Are you fit to drive?’

‘Why do you say that? I’m not shaking.’ She remembered a recent experience of real physical shock. ‘I’m just a bit numb.’

‘You’re talking funny. Not making proper sense.’

‘That’s not me. That’s how it really is. I delivered flowers to a man who said he was the one on the order, but he wasn’t, because his daughter identified that man’s body on Wednesday. Now the first man is murdered on the patio of the same house. He was the detective man’s friend, which makes it all a lot more awful. He’s upset. They’ll probably take him off the case. The two men weren’t a couple. This one – he’s called Tim – was a scientist.’ She was babbling, rehearsing what she knew she would have to explain to Ben and Melanie the next day. She thought glumly of Ben’s inevitable excitement.

‘Oh, well. Everything will become perfectly clear once the police start a proper investigation. They’ll already have questioned neighbours.’ Kathy looked back down the little road. ‘Although it is a bit quiet around here. Not many lights on.’

‘Holiday homes,’ said Simmy. ‘Or else people earning their living from tourism. They go to the Canaries in winter.’

‘You say the first man committed suicide?’

‘Right – although I gather we’re not meant to call it that any more. I had a lecture the other week about it from a customer.’

‘You’re joking! Why?’

‘Something about it no longer being illegal, so you don’t
commit it. I was going to tell my mum about it, but she’d have ranted so much I didn’t dare.’

‘Madness,’ said Kathy. ‘Not every act you commit is a crime – is it?’

‘Some people think it is, apparently.’

‘Anyway. We’re getting off the point. He killed himself. Does anybody know why?’

Simmy groaned. ‘I had an awful feeling at first that it was because of the flowers I delivered to him. There’s been a run of unwelcome bouquets this week – all causing upset in various ways. But now I can rest easy about this one, at least, because it wasn’t him they were intended for.’ She paused. ‘Except – I suppose Mr Hayter might have come home on Monday and seen them, and something about them drove him to suicide.’